Capitol Threat

48

Pretty Boy slammed a fist into Loving’s face. Given the force of the blow, Loving should have fallen backward about ten feet, but the rope—Trudy’s rope, from the motel room—held him tightly to his chair. So Pretty Boy hit him again.

Blood gushed out of Loving’s nostrils. It looked as if the light in the storage closet at Action was blinking on and off, but Loving knew the only thing blinking was his tenuous grasp on consciousness.

This had been going on for almost an hour. His face was so cut, bruised, and bloodied that Loving suspected it barely resembled his usual handsome self. But at some point, even he had to worry about how much he could take. Or how long before Renny would get sick of the game and just kill him.

Renny stepped into the light cast by the low-hanging lamp descending from the ceiling. “Would this be a time when you would be feeling comfortable talking to me, my friend?”

Loving licked the traces of blood from his lips. He wanted to wipe away the blood dripping into his eyes, but his hands were tied behind him. “Never been much of a talker,” Loving managed. “But the ladies tell me I’m a great listener. Why don’t you do the talkin’, and I’ll just keep my ears open.”

“Fool.” Renny’s irritation was almost as pronounced as his cruelty. “You were tough and merciless when you had me strapped to your chair. Do you find torture for information so amusing now as you did then?” He snapped his fingers at Pretty Boy. “Hurt him some more.”

The next five minutes were not among the most memorable that Loving had experienced. Okay, they were memorable, he supposed, but nothing he’d remember by choice.

Could be worse, he tried to tell himself. Not too long ago, he’d been certain he was a dead man. He saw Max—no, Feodor—press the gun against his chest. He’d seen him pull the trigger, heard the action fire. When he’d lost consciousness, he felt quite certain it was for the last time. Except a funny thing happened. Turned out that gun wasn’t one of your garden-variety firing mechanisms flinging molded pieces of lead. It was a taser gun. About a trillion volts of electricity rocketed through his body. Renny was wearing a dog collar—an electronic homing device—on his ankle, like a criminal on parole, which explained how his paid assassins were able to find him so quickly. Loving woke up later in this tiny storage closet in the back of the club, with barely enough room for him and Renny and Pretty Boy.

“Perhaps I have not made myself clear enough to you,” Renny said, clipping off each word with a bitter emphasis. “These men here—they do not like you. My young son Wilhelm, he in particular does not care for you. It would seem that you have embarrassed my boy Wilhelm. Badly. At a public place. A shopping mall. In the ladies’ department, no less. It is all much too horrible to contemplate.” He leaned forward. “Confidentially, my friend, I am not surprised. I have tried to protect Wilhelm with experienced partners and big guns, but at the end of the day, some problems cannot be remedied.”

“Hey!” Wilhelm protested.

Renny waved a hand. “Do not bother. It is true and we both know it.”

“He’s not so great. All he did was sneak up behind me. Like a coward. He hit me with Alexander’s gun. It hurt!”

Renny shook his head, eyes closed. “Do not make it worse than it already is, my son. This man Loving—he has no need for surprise. Take away your gun and he could use you for a sledgehammer even now.”

“Not sure I could now,” Loving grunted. “But I like the sound of it.”

The corner of Renny’s lip turned up. “Let me cut to the chase, my friend, or we will be forced to continue cutting your face. Wilhelm would very much enjoy the chance to kill you, and I cannot say that this would cause me much pain, except for my own security and that of my associates. I would like to know how much you know and how you came to know it and who you have told about it. That is all. It could not be more simple. So there you have it. You tell me what I wish to know and you will live. You fail to cooperate and you will die.”

Loving spat out the blood dribbled between his lips. “Liar.”

“You do not believe me?” Renny said, a hand pressed against his chest. He feigned offense for a moment or two, then gave it up. “All right then. You are correct. There is in fact no chance that you will walk out of here alive. You have embarrassed me too greatly. Even if I was not concerned about the information you have learned—and I am—I could never let you leave. But I can very much rearrange the manner in which you die. One bullet to the cranium and it will all be over in an instant. Quick. Painless. Or we can make it a much slower, more protracted, more…memorable affair.” He leaned in close. “We will make you feel such pain that this simple torture you have undergone so far will be as nothing. It will seem like your mother’s sweet kisses compared to what will follow. So what will it be? The quick death, or the excruciating one?”

Loving grimaced. “Geez, I don’t know. I’ve always been a choosy shopper. Can I have some more time to think about it?”

“I think not.” Renny lunged forward and pinched Loving’s nostrils closed with one hand, covering his mouth with the other, squeezing so hard it hurt. Loving’s senses were immediately overwhelmed by the loss of air. He wanted to gasp for breath, but the fingers on his nose remained firmly in place. He soon depleted the remaining air in his lungs and worse, had no way to release the carbon dioxide building in his system. His head felt as if it might explode; his eyes were bulging out of their sockets. Blood trickled down his throat.

Just at the instant he was certain he would pass out, Renny removed his hands.

Loving lurched forward—or at least his head did, the only part of his body that wasn’t tied to the chair. He coughed and wheezed and gasped for air, desperate to get something circulating through his lungs.

“A nasty way to die, isn’t it?” Renny said. “But even at that, much too quick. Much too painless. I want something that you will experience with more…extended pleasure. Unless you are perhaps ready to tell me what I wish to know.”

Loving wanted to be defiant, but found he was unable to form the words necessary to do it. How much longer could he hold out? He knew every man, no matter how tough, had a breaking point. And he feared he was very much approaching his.

“This is your last chance, Mr. Loving. Talk to me!”

Somehow, some way, he managed to find words. “No, thanks. I’ll go with Option Two.”

“Idiot!” Renny threw up his hands, enraged. He grabbed the lamp behind him, jerked the electrical cord out of the base of the lamp—without unplugging it—and peeled back the rubber coating. Once he was able to reach the wiring beneath, he pulled the two threads apart, careful not to let them touch.

“Americans,” Renny swore under his breath. “You have such stupid notions, these preposterous ideas of what it is to be a man. Where did you learn your lessons, from the James Bond movies? Let us see if your little secrets seem so important after this.”

Loving felt a surge of raw electricity delivered to his chest. His entire body lurched up and down; his heart beat wildly. Renny had only begun his work. He touched the exposed wires to Loving’s forehead, his cheeks, his damaged nose. He ripped apart Loving’s T-shirt and touched the wires to his nipples, and when that wasn’t enough, he touched the wires to his crotch. Loving fought to stay awake, fought to avoid cardiac arrest, fought to keep his lips closed a little longer.

What would it hurt to talk? he heard the evil voice in his head saying. Ben and Christina could take care of themselves. He didn’t even like Thaddeus Roush. Who was he trying to protect? His investigation had come to a dead stop. What was it he was trying to save this time? What exactly was it he was going to die for?

And then the answers crystallized in his head. He wasn’t going to die. He wasn’t going to take Option One or Two. He was going to live—live for the chance to turn the tables on Pretty Boy and Renny. He had to pull through. If nothing else, for that.

And perhaps for that beautiful painting of the disciples on the Sea of Galilee.

“Damn you!” Renny shouted. He continued electrocuting Loving, but Loving had removed his mind to another place, had focused on thinking, not feeling. Nursery rhymes, country music lyrics, the Pledge of Allegiance, anything to distract him. He couldn’t even be sure which parts of his body had been electrified. All he knew was that he had survived it.

Renny was furious. “We need something better. Something that hurts even more! Something this monster can’t ignore!”

“I’ll get to work on it, Father,” Pretty Boy said.

“Don’t bother. I have had all of this one that I can stand. If he has told what he knows to someone else, they will soon show their hand. And then we will kill those people. We will kill that senator for whom he works and everyone in his office. We will kill everyone he knows, if necessary. But we will start with him.”

He clasped his hand tightly around Loving’s throat. “Play time is over, my oversized friend.” He squeezed even tighter. “Your death is now upon you.”